First Day in Kuala Lumpur

The newspaper that was delivered to my room this morning had the front page headline “Facing the Food Crisis.” Obviously I am also going to hear a lot about self sufficiency problems when it comes to food production in Malaysia. My first meeting this morning was with Dr. Khaw Eng Sun, DVM. He is a Technical Advisory Committee Member for the Federation of Livestock Farmers’ Associations of Malaysia. Actually this group is only concerned with pork and poultry. There is a price ceiling on poultry in Malaysia. This ceiling price is lower than the cost of production. This is yet another example of a government working in a counterproductive way when it comes to production. Actually there are 11 items that have set prices including cooking oil, chicken, bread, sugar, flour and condensed milk and in the newspaper this morning the Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs said there would be a meeting today to discuss adding more items to this program. At the same time the government is also talking about how to increase domestic production. From my prospective these two things seem counter to each other. Many decisions here are political and making food cheap for the consumer is a good political move. There has been one political coalition in power here for many years and in the last election the opposition party gained five states, so they are feeling the need to make the public happy. Also, there is very little consistency in policy; each time that there is a different Minister of Agriculture there is totally different policy. Recently the former Minister of Higher Education has become the Minister of Agriculture. Both here and in Japan I have been surprised at how people move from one part of government to another. In the U.S. if you work for the USDA you aren’t very likely to move to the Education Department for example.

Thirty percent of the broilers produced in Malaysia are slaughtered at inspected plants and sold frozen. The other 70% are still sold through wet markets which in many cases are less than sanitary. These chickens are fresh not frozen and the consumers prefer them. They are also much less expensive. There is concern about drug residue in these birds. Malaysia produces 40 million broilers per month and 10% are exported to Singapore live and slaughtered there. Most of the feed comes from the U.S. and Brazil. The number of farms has shown a sharp decrease in the last 15 years and is expected to continue in this trend. The pork and poultry industries are predominately run by Chinese Malaysians. When the British were in control of Malaysia they tended to encourage immigrants from certain countries to do certain jobs and many of those trends continue today.

I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant with Johan Raslan, my Program Coordinator; he is Executive Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers and Honorary Secretary of the Eisenhower Fellowships Alumni in Malaysia (EFAM). Another guest was Tan Sri Dato’ Mohd Ramli Kushairi, President of EFAM and Chairman of the South Malaysia Industries Berhad. He is also a member of the Prime Minister’s Malaysia Business Council. Cody White, Cultural Attaché, and Loh Lee Pin, Assistant Marketing Manager of the Office of Agricultural Affairs, also joined us from the American Embassy. I enjoyed meeting everyone and we had a good conversation.

My afternoon appointment was with Dr. M. Ghazie Ismail with the Halal Industry Development Corporation (HDC). He gave a PowerPoint presentation on the HDC and explained the requirements to meet Halal Standards. The HDC is focusing on Halal Integrity, Industry Development and Branding and Promotion. Halal products are being promoted to all residents of Malaysia as higher quality, more sanitary products. In addition to following Halal slaughter practices they require strict sanity compliance which is not always used in other products in Malaysia. They are working to increase the Halal Industry in Malaysia not just in food but also in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Brazil is currently the largest exporter of Halal products and Australia also has a good sized Halal industry. I think that there may be some opportunities for U.S. businesses in the Halal industry. Since we already have excellent sanitary systems in the U.S., I think the only added requirements would be to have a Muslim do the slaughtering and have an Imam bless the animals. The Halal market is growing around the world.

In the morning I leave for a palm oil plantation where I will spend the night so I don’t think I will have internet access. I will post again as soon as possible.